Free For All; Corruption scandals and voter cynicism are fueling a wide-open race to replace Fox.

Byline: Joseph Contreras

It might have been the stuff of political satire were it not so painfully true to life. A prominent member of the Mexico City legislature named Rene Bejarano was speaking on a morning television news program nearly a month ago about a recently broadcast videotape. It showed the mayor's finance secretary gambling and spending money lavishly in a Las Vegas casino. Bejarano was calling for greater honesty among his fellow public servants when he was suddenly confronted with footage of himself accepting $45,000 in cash from a shady businessman--so much money, in fact, that Bejarano had to stuff some of the greenbacks into the pockets of his suit. Bejarano denied he had been taking bribes and said he was merely accepting a campaign contribution for another politician who also belonged to the left-wing Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). "I have a modest life," sputtered Bejarano. "I have nothing to hide." But no record of the donation was ever found, and Bejarano himself has since gone into hiding.

Mexico's "videogate" scandal has deepened the cynicism that millions of its citizens have traditionally harbored toward their elected officials--and thrown the 2006 presidential race wide open yet again. The most immediate victim of the video exposes was Mexico City's PRD Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who hasn't yet formally announced his candidacy but is the front runner in many opinion polls. He once employed Bejarano as his personal secretary. Lopez Obrador fired his blackjack-playing finance secretary, but that didn't stop his poll numbers from at least temporarily plunging through the floorboards. President Vicente Fox's wife, Marta Sahagun, is once again dropping hints about running, despite earlier denials. And last week Fox's former foreign minister (and a former NEWSWEEK columnist) Jorge Castaneda threw his own hat into the ring as an independent, claiming that all of Mexico's parties were thoroughly discredited.

It's early yet, but the crowded field says something about how chaotic Mexico's politics have become. Fox's historic victory over the long-ruling and famously corrupt Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the 2000 election was supposed to usher in a new era of transparency in government. But voters see more of the same. His wife has recently been accused of using public resources to promote her private charity foundation, an allegation she stoutly denies. Earlier this year the 32-year-old leader of the Green Ecological Party was caught on tape discussing a $2 million bribe with a land developer; the politician claimed he had been set up by jealous rivals within his own party.

Analysts warn that voters are in danger of checking out of the political process altogether. "[Political parties] keep losing credibility and legitimacy, and nobody respects them," says Luis Rubio, president of the Mexico City-based Center of Research for Development. "That is the most serious danger because parties are necessary to process demands and make it possible for democracy to work."

When Fox took office at the end of 2000, the former Coca-Cola executive constantly spoke of the coming "change" in Mexico. He promised to create a "vigorous, competitive" country ready to tackle the challenges of globalization. By all accounts, Mexico is a far more democratic society under Fox. He has enacted a groundbreaking freedom-of-information law and authorized the prosecution of former members of the country's security services for human-rights atrocities dating back to the 1970s.

But his economic and political reform agenda has been blocked at every step of the way by the opposition-controlled national legislature. Fox's clout was further weakened by 2003 midterm elections, when his National Action Party (PAN) lost 53 seats in the lower chamber of the Mexican Congress. With nearly three years still left in his term, many political analysts routinely talk about the Fox era in the past tense. "Fox personally has not been accused of corruption, and he's set an example of honest government," says Michael Shifter of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue think tank. "But people are worried that there hasn't been effective government."